The People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank, announced on Thursday that it would cut certain interest rates and cut the downpayment ratio for commercial property mortgages, among other measures it is taking to support growth and facilitate structural improvements.
"The PBOC will cut the interest rates on all structural monetary policy tools by 0.25 percentage points. The one-year relending rate will be reduced from 1.5 percent to 1.25 percent, with rates for other maturities adjusted accordingly. The central bank will integrate the use of its relending and rediscount quotas to support agriculture and small businesses, with an additional 500 billion yuan (about 71.36 billion U.S. dollars) allocated to the relending facility. Within the total quota, a dedicated relending facility of 1 trillion yuan will be established specifically for private enterprises, prioritizing support for small and medium-sized private firms," said Zou Lan, spokesperson and deputy governor of the PBOC, at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office in Beijing.
"The central bank has increased the loan quota for sci-tech innovation and tech transformation by 400 billion yuan (about 57.5 billion U.S. dollars) from 800 billion yuan (about 115 billion U.S. dollars to 1.2 trillion yuan (about 172.5 billion U.S. dollars). It has also included private small and medium-sized enterprises with higher levels of research and development investment in the support scope. The central bank will also merge the existing bond financing support tools for private enterprises and the risk-sharing tools for sci-tech innovation bonds, providing a total relending quota of 200 billion yuan (about 29 billion U.S. dollars)," said Zou.
"The PBOC will expand the support areas of the support tools for carbon emission reduction. More projects with carbon emission reduction effects, such as energy renovation, green upgrading, and green energy and low-carbon transformation, will be included to guide banks to support the comprehensive green transformation. The central bank will expand the support scope for service consumption and elderly care relending. Based on the criteria for recognizing the health industry, the health industry will be included in the support scope for service consumption and elderly care relending at an appropriate time," said the deputy governor.
"The central bank will work with the National Financial Regulatory Administration to lower the minimum downpayment ratio for commercial property mortgages to 30 percent, aiming to support the process of reducing inventory in the commercial real estate market. The central bank will encourage financial institutions to enhance their services for hedging against exchange-rate risks by enriching hedging products and providing enterprises with cost-effective, flexible and efficient exchange-rate risk management tools," he said.
Zou said that there is still some room for maneuver this year regarding the reduction of the reserve requirement ratio and interest rates in the banking sector, with the current average reserve requirement ratio for financial institutions at 6.3 percent. As for policy interest rates, he said external constraints for the RMB exchange rate are stable, and the U.S. dollar is in a rate-cutting channel. Internally, banks' net interest margins have shown signs of stabilization, holding at 1.42 percent for two consecutive quarters, he said.
A large number of three-year and five-year long-term deposits will mature in 2026 and need repricing, Zou added. The PBOC has lowered rates on various relending facilities to help reduce banks' interest payment costs, stabilize net interest margins, and create some space for interest rate cuts, Zou said.
China to cut rates, commercial property downpayment to support growth
